home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!news.acns.nwu.edu!telecom-request
- Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 00:05:00 GMT
- From: mike@percy.rain.com (Michael Heggen)
- Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
- Subject: Re: Only One Phone Works ... Help!
- Message-ID: <telecom12.870.7@eecs.nwu.edu>
- Organization: /etc/organization
- Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
- Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
- X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
- X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
- X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 870, Message 7 of 7
- Lines: 59
-
- awolf@cit.hmc.psu.edu (Andy Wolf) writes:
-
- > I have a problem in an apartment that I recently moved into. There is
-
- [stuff deleted]
-
- > 2. In a rental situation, is it typical that the apartment company
- > should fix this problem, or do I have the burden?
-
- > [Moderator's Note: Have you tried other instruments in BR- to see if
-
- [stuff deleted]
-
- > The landlord does not have to fix the problem. Telco is not as easily
-
- With all due respect to the Moderator, I would suggest that Andy Wolf
- check his rental agreement as well as the landlord-tenant law in his
- state. In Oregon telephone service can fall under the portion of the
- landlord-tenant law regarding maintenance of necessary services. This
- is sort of a grey area, as I discovered with a somewhat senile (but
- definitely obnoxious) landlady at a previous residence. I had had a
- second line installed. The apartment complex was wired using
- multi-pair cable (8-pair? Don't remember ...) and there were twelve
- units in the complex. The phone guy just found an unused pair and we
- hooked that up as the yellow-black pair on our regular jacks in
- apartment. After a few weeks, I started getting noise on the line and
- it degraded to the point that you couldn't hear dialtone. I spoke to
- my landlady about it and she said that it was her responsibility to
- keep the wiring maintained, so she would pay to have it fixed if it
- was determined that that was where the problem was. Great!
-
- So I called the phone company (Pacific Northwest Bell) who came out
- and determined that the problem was probably at a junction somewhere
- in between the first and second floors. They also discovered that all
- the rest of the unused pairs were just as bad as mine was (if not
- worse) and that the wiring was really awful (complex was probably
- wired by a independent contractor during construction). It would
- require that they go into several other apartments, etc. and would run
- a couple of hours time in all (in addition to the $90 already spent to
- track down the problem).
-
- Now the fun starts: my landlady claims that the installation of a
- second line was "an unauthorized modification" to the apartment. She
- claimed that it was "tampering" and therefore in violation of the
- lease. She claimed that her responsibility was only for my first line
- and that she would not pay for the repair service (any of it), nor
- would she allow repairs to be made.
-
- End result: I had to disconnect my second line and pay a $90 repair
- bill (the phone guys -- yes, there were two of them) were nice enough
- to knock an hour's time off the bill, but it was still $90. And, I
- had no data line.
-
- Storal of the mory: get it in writing from your landlord beforehand.
-
-
- Michael Heggen <mike@percy.rain.com>
-
-